CONCORD, N.C. – In a year that has been filled with peaks and valleys, Cole Custer managed to overcome a botched restart late in Saturday’s Hisense 4K TV 300 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway to earn a hard fought seventh and collect his third top-10 finish of the year for Stewart-Haas Racing.
While Custer has flexed his muscle for much of the NASCAR XFINITY Series first 10 races, the NASCAR Next alumnus has struggled to turn fast race cars into solid finishes. Whether his fault or not, the bad luck plummeted from a season high 10th in the championship standings to 12th before Saturday’s race.
On the opening stretch of 20 consecutive races that will carry the XFINITY Series tour through a return trip to Charlotte Motor Speedway in October, Saturday’s performance was a good start for Custer and his campaign to make the XFINITY Series playoffs.
“We had an awesome Haas Automation Mustang,” said Custer. “I had one bad restart there. All of my other ones seemed to be pretty decent and we were in the top-5. I thought we were a fourth or fifth-place car, but on that one, I fell back to 11th and picked the wrong lane going into three and four. I just can’t thank everybody enough.”
After showcasing his speed during practice on Thursday and during the opening rounds of qualifying on Saturday morning, the two-time NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualified sixth, earning his sixth top-10 start of the season.
Quickly, Custer jumped to third by Lap 7. Hovering there through the end of Stage 1, Custer picked up some coveted stage points. Maintaining his presence inside the top-five during the end of Stage 2, Custer found himself contending for his second top-five performance since Texas Motor Speedway in early April.
Restart sixth for the beginning of Stage 3, the California native climbed to fourth on Lap 160 after gaining a position during the final round of pit stops. An array of late race restarts attempted to play havoc with a good day for the development driver with Custer’s No. 00 Haas Automation Ford slipping to 10th with six laps to.
A green-white-checkered finish, however, allowed him to climb three positions to seventh and secure his third top-10 run on an intermediate track. Custer recovered from being collected in the “big one” at Daytona to finish 10th at Atlanta. A month later, a XFINITY career-best fifth kept the rookie in the spotlight.
“I felt like I had pretty good restart all day, but just the second to the last one, I chose the wrong lane in Turns 3 and 4 and it cost us some spots. I got back to 11th or something like. It was good to be able to climb back up to seventh though, even though I felt like we had a top-five car.”
The rookie credits the hard work of his Stewart-Haas team and the flux of dedication from Ford Performance for making his car so competitive.
“We had an awesome Haas Automation Mustang today and it’s all about my team, I’m just the steering wheel holder,” Custer added. “Everybody at Ford Performance has been a big help. We’ve used a lot of their tools to come here and I think we have a good car to come back with.”
Custer’s solid finish at Charlotte saw him climb to 11th in the championship standings.
“We’re walking away with a nice points day and really happy with it,” added Custer. “I wish we could have ended up top-five, but I’m really happy and think we can build on this week to week and run that good.”
Building a foundation at SHR’s XFINITY program, Custer is looking ahead with a mission to get into the playoffs and return to Charlotte, the first cutoff race in the playoffs with a duplicate effort.
“Yeah, it’ so far out, it hard to think about (the playoffs), but I feel like all year we’ve had pretty fast cars that plenty good enough to get in the playoffs, we just need to keep staying consistent,” he said. “And, it’s always good to run strong at a place you go to twice because your setup shouldn’t change all too much.”
Next weekend, the former NASCAR K&N Pro Series standout will make his debut at Dover’s Monster Mile, a place he’s eager to get too.
“I’m excited for Dover because it’s one of the coolest tracks we go to and I feel like it’s one of my better tracks,” said Custer who finished fifth in Trucks at Dover last May. “We had a really fast car at Bristol, which is also a concrete track, so we’ll bring a little confidence there.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01 or email at [email protected].
